


Memory, Hither Come

by onawingandaswear



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Amnesia, Dubious Consent, M/M, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:04:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onawingandaswear/pseuds/onawingandaswear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a bound manuscript in the drawer where a bible should be, littered with edits and indecipherable shorthand notations. The title page declares boldly: 'Casino Royale'. Bond starts reading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memory, Hither Come

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IViv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IViv/gifts).



> For the 00Silva Gift Exchange and the lovely iviv09! I hope you love it!

 

 

“This is my fault,” James hears over the steady pulse of the heart monitor. The man sounds horribly remorseful and Bond’s body won’t cooperate; his eyes won’t open and he’s so damn _weak_.

It feels like it takes a lifetime, but when he finally coaches his eyes to open, he sees white, then a doctor, then a dark-haired Raoul Silva.

He reacts suddenly and twists to grab for anything he can use as a weapon only to end up on the floor amid horrified shouts. 

He tries to get up, but white spots his vision and he crumples back onto the linoleum. Hands reach to help him, but he blacks out before he can see if they belong to the doctor or a dead man.

 

* * *

 

There’s no sign of Silva when Bond slips into consciousness again, body aching horribly and head throbbing. Nurses and doctors fuss over him, and he goes through the motions. Everything is almost textbook, and he’s half waiting for an MI6 liaison to waltz in and debrief him, but no agent comes.

 

* * *

 

“We’re going to go through a simple question and answer exercise, just to test your mental faculties. Is this alright, Mister Bond?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now what year is it?”

“2012.”

The neurologist, Simmons, scribbles hurriedly onto whatever form regards James’ wellbeing.

“Don’t tell me I’ve already gotten one wrong.” He bites, suddenly tense.

“No, no,” Simmons says slowly, smiling in an all-too patronizing fashion, “This is to be expected, new year and all.” 

“Ah.” His head _aches_.

“What is your full name?”

“James Bond.”

“No middle name?” 

“Not one that I’m aware of.” _Or willing to share,_ he thinks.

The man makes another note.

“What is the last thing you remember before waking up here?”

“Classified.” The word slips out his mouth before he can stop it and Simmons looks horribly confused.

“Beg pardon? Did you say classified? Classified by who?”

“The British Government. Can we be done now?”

Simmons writes so quickly Bond is curious to see if the pen tip will break.

The session goes downhill quickly from there.

 

* * *

 

The room reeks of antiseptic, but otherwise is warmly appointed. A nurse tells him he’s in a long-term care facility before apologizing and leaving quickly.  

He wrestles with the bedsheets and stares hard at his pale legs, no longer thick with toned muscle but thin and pale with atrophy. 

They run test after test and ignore him when he asks for a phone. 

There’s a bound manuscript in the drawer where a bible should be, covered with edit marks and indecipherable shorthand notations. The title page declares boldly: _Casino Royale_. 

He starts reading.

 

* * *

 

The neurologist tells him his name is James Bond. That’s where the similarity ends.

 

* * *

 

“You are blessed to have someone who cares for you as much as he does,” the nurse, Emily, tells him one morning when she catches him going over the manuscript for the tenth time.

“Most people that end up here are as good as abandoned, but Mister Rodriguez practically lives here.” She nods to the small writing desk shoved up against the window before motioning to the bound paper in his hands. “He asked to bring a table in so he could type.”

“He wrote this?” Bond asks, thumbing through the innumerable passages detailing his innermost thoughts and shameful actions.

“He wrote _both_ of them. Made you into a proper hero.” She checks his IV and sings to herself, “ _James Bond, Agent double-oh-seven.”_

He looks up at her in what must be confusion, because when she notices his expression she flushes with embarrassment

“Oh, but you don’t know anything about that, do you? He read to you everyday he was here, I just assumed some of it slipped in, at least that’s what Doctor Simmons mentioned. Tiago gave us a box of his books, I think there’s a copy of the next one at the nurses station. Something to tide you over, hmm?”

She leaves and he slips into sleep, as is all to common these days.

When he wakes there’s a hardbound book on the nightstand. _Quantum of Solace._

His eyes catch on the dedication page. 

_For James, who’s as strong in his mind as he is in mine._

* * *

 

He convinces a young attendant to let him use her laptop and discovers a number of articles detailing how Rodriguez’s 007 novels were written for and dedicated to his fiancé, a man that bears a disturbing resemblance to James. 

Another link leads him to an article about the man everyone seems to be convinced is him. It goes on like this for hours; page after page, interview after interview. Source after source telling him exactly what he doesn’t want to believe.

Apparently the man had nearly died in an automobile accident some months prior; run off the road by a crazed fan.

The neurologist tells him his memories are false. Fabrications created somewhere between the head-trauma and the medically induced coma that landed him in what was to be a long-term care facility.

He’s not a secret agent. He doesn’t work for the British government. He’s never been shot, stabbed, or poisoned.

He’s never been to Montenegro. Or Belize. Or Singapore.

He’s a freelance journalist and a retired Commander of the Royal Navy. He receives a military pension through direct deposit each month. He doesn’t own a gun and he grows cherry tomatoes in a garden. 

He tells them he’s James Bond. 

They tell him he’s not.

 

* * *

 

The Silva look-alike visits sporadically and acts all too cautious after their first meeting.

When James reconciles the man’s striking appearance, ‘Tiago Rodriguez’ is a fairly attractive, quietly brilliant, overly affectionate man. Constantly fussing over James’ well being and so desperately in love that James can’t bear the thought of hurting him, even in an ancillary fashion. 

Accepting that the man is allegedly his _partner_ , however, is significantly more difficult, given that James can only see M and Sévérine when he looks to Tiago’s otherwise demure features.

 

* * *

 

Rodriguez brings him home to a thoroughly lived-in townhouse with a closet full of his clothes and a pantry stocked to the brim with his favorite foods.

The man flutters nervously around James, constantly alert and wary, but desperate for attention that James cannot give.  

James knows that Tiago is aware of his ‘condition’, and as such his memory issues. So it should be understandable that the man keeps his distance those first few days. 

Nonetheless, meals appear in James’ room like clockwork, accompanied by flowers, books, newspapers, and eventually a small tablet computer loaded with several films he’s never seen and non-abrasive music by artists he’s never heard of.

It all feels very apologetic.

James still doesn’t engage the man when he doesn’t have to.

 

* * *

 

The physical therapist comes twice a day, and James sees her more than he’s seen Silva.

After two weeks he can walk, albeit slowly, the astonishingly long twelve meters from his temporary room to the kitchen, unaided. 

He deserves to be knighted.

It is during one of these treks that James catches Silva in the study, typing away, completely engrossed in his work. James stays like that for several minutes, braced against the door frame watching as M’s killer does everything from absently pushing a pair of ill-fitting reading glasses back onto the bridge of his nose, to scratching the day-old stubble on his cheek. It’s disarmingly mundane and James tries to figure out what emotion he should be feeling at the moment, given that his anger appears to be increasingly misplaced.

No answer comes.

It is only when Silva stands to stretch that he catches sight of James, nearly toppling his chair over in surprise.

“James!”

Fondness. Exasperation. Hesitation. James identifies all of these things, but can’t muster the will to engage the man in conversation.

“Silva.”

The name slips out before James can stop himself and Tiago pales. 

“Silva? As in Raoul Silva? I haven’t even written him down yet, and that is who you made me? That is why you’ve been avoiding me?”

James is caught off guard, but he nods in affirmation and Tiago looks ill.

“How did I not see it? James, I am not a villain! And every second that you spend believing that you are a secret agent or a-a super-spy, I know that it’s my fault! That I did this to you, that I broke you in ways that may never be repairable. I love you, I will always love you, and --” 

He cuts off with a wet cough, his breath hitching tightly. 

“I need you to stop looking at me like you hate me because there is nothing in this world that I hate more than myself. I was driving the car that night, I was the one who read to you in the hospital and I can’t ask for your forgiveness because you are not even you! You’re _James-fucking-Bond_ and I am so sorry but I am trying to make this work and --”

Tiago breaks off to rub furiously at his eyes, trying to stem the tears already shining on his cheeks. James has no idea how to respond, or what an acceptable response would even be. He realizes absently that this, in itself, is the problem. When Tiago looks at him with tired eyes it’s the first time James feels like he might be the one that’s broken in all of this.

“I just don’t want to lose you because I’m a bad writer.”

“We need to talk.” James says finally. “About me. About what happened to me. I need you to help me understand why I’m like this.”

 

* * *

 

Things get better after that.

 

* * *

 

He sees things he shouldn’t see, glimpses of people who don’t exist. 

On the train one morning he sees Eve. Or, rightly, he assumes, the woman who inspired her. She doesn’t see him at first, and he wonders how his mind concocted such an elaborate backstory for someone he’d never met in person. At his stop, he sends a look her way, a smile and a nod, and he can’t be sure, but she looks almost shaken at the attention.

He shouldn’t be surprised, he’s not as attractive here as he imagined he was in his dream world of espionage and secret agents; his hair greying and face sallow from the lack of sun and proper exercise. He makes his way quickly to the escalators, feeling suddenly melancholy. His shoulder aches with a phantom pain.

At least she didn’t shoot him in real life. 

 

* * *

 

Eve isn’t the only one. Q pops up every so often, weaving between the aisles at James’ grocer and often riding the same 6:05 train to Vauxhall when he’s feeling nostalgic. He tries not to make eye contact and he never engages.

He’s standing in a Barclays queue looking over his latest bank statement and comparing the information to the back of his personalized bank card - a piece of plastic emblazoned with a picture of an Aston Martin.

“Less of a random accessory, more of a personal statement.” James chokes on his tongue.

“Excuse me?”

“I am sorry if I surprised you.” The man motions to James’ hand. “It’s a very nice car. Do you have one?”

“I used to.”

“Pity.”

‘Q’ falls silent and the line inches forward.

If he hears, ‘It’s nice to see you up and around, 007,’ he blames his imagination.

 

* * *

 

His physical therapist is a kind woman, over qualified and overly understanding. 

She nods and smiles and tells him he’s doing great even though he knows otherwise. It really isn’t fair for him to use her as a psychologist as well, but there are very few people he recognizes anymore, let alone feels comfortable enough speaking to.

“It’s understandable that you’d latch onto something as a tether to reality. In this case your partner’s manuscripts offered some respite for your consciousness. James, I know you think that that your memories stem from real experiences, but the sooner you recognize you aren’t a secret agent the better off you’ll be.”

“I know.” 

He always gets frustrated at this part. She never believes him. 

“I know it isn’t real. I know that I’m not a spy.”

“Have you considered finding something to occupy your time? Everyone needs a hobby.” She says amiably while massaging a too-tight hamstring in his right thigh.

The room tilts sharply.

“Yeah. A hobby.”

 

* * *

 

He finds twenty-thousand Euros tucked under the tongue of a size forty-four calfskin loafer, the brand of which James cannot identify.

“In case of emergency,” Tiago tells him with a knowing smile. “Or in case we want to get away for a week.”

He reminds himself this man isn’t a criminal.

 

* * *

 

They go to a party held by Tiago’s publisher. It’s a mistake. 

He spends the first hour fielding questions about ‘his character’ and the next three smoking in the coat check, his hands shaking too hard to light the damn things without the help of the young female attendant. 

By the end of the night he’s exhausted and he can’t find the valet ticket and he can't remember what car they drove to the event and they think he’s mad when he says his name is ‘James Bond’. 

Tiago is furious when he finds James sitting alone on the curb. He is informed they didn’t take a car, and Tiago sits with him on the concrete while they wait for a taxi, his fingers laced tightly with James’ own.

“What happened to my car? The Aston?"

“Don’t you remember darling? The accident?” 

James sees two things in his mind’s eye. The first, a bullet-riddled Aston Martin DB5 and his lover’s pale haired doppelgänger. The second, an overturned landscape through a splintered windshield.

And screaming. He remembers the screaming.

So he nods and Tiago squeezes tighter.

“Thank god that your father was not alive to see what you did to his car.”

There are so many things wrong with the sentence that James cannot find a single one to voice.

 

* * *

 

_“Is there anything of the old double-oh-seven left?”_

James meets Tiago’s eyes in the reflection of the bathroom mirror, the razor in his hand forgotten.

“What did you say?”

“I asked you if we had any cream left. Are you alright, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

He swallows past the lump in his throat.

“I’m fine, you just startled me.”

There’s red in the sink, he hadn’t realized he’d cut himself.

 

* * *

 

Tiago shows him the manuscript he’d been working on before James woke up. It’s about betrayal and retribution. The title character still bares his name.

“You’re famous.” Tiago jokes, jaw clicking slightly, but the humor doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

James takes the book and flips through the pages until his eyes catch on the name _Silva._

“You made yourself the villain.” He says, looking briefly at the barely-there scarring that spiderwebs across Tiago’s jaw line, a painful reminder of the accident that almost took their lives. He feels slightly sick thinking about Silva in MI6's 'crystal cage'. He feels even worse when he reads the passage outright.

“You die at the end. I kill you.” 

“Spoilers, James. There had to be one world where you walked away from all of this.” 

James suggests that Tiago title this one ‘Skyfall’. The editors love it.

“Soon the world will know our story,” Tiago toasts at dinner. “What do you say to that, Mister Bond?”

He gives a small smile in response. 

If Tiago’s hair looks blonde in the dim light, James doesn’t mention it.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up in the middle of the night, throat raw and cheeks damp. He rolls onto his side to check on Tiago, but the man is already awake and fully dressed, sitting up against the headboard with his ankles crossed over the duvet. 

His dark brown hair is perfectly coiffed beneath a policeman’s cap.

The alarm clock reads 3:54 A.M.

“I think I’ve come undone.” James whispers, dry lips catching on the satin pillowcase, and Tiago smiles with false teeth. 

“Perhaps we both have.”

 

* * *

 

They want Tiago to do a book tour, the British Isles to start and then across the channel to France before finishing up in Spain.

Everything is postponed, however, when the government takes issue with the book’s content, something about _Skyfall_ containing sensitive information. 

They make Tiago change the location of MI6’s emergency station. 

 

* * *

 

Tiago pulls off his shirt and James catches a glimpse of a thin scar along the other man's spine.

"Silva." The name slips out before he can catch himself. Tiago's shoulders shake with laughter but he answers in a serious tone.

"Yes, Mister Bond?"

"How are you alive?"

Tiago drops beside him, bouncing slightly on the hotel bed, and throws an arm around James' shoulders; kissing James’ neck softly before trailing his lips along the hollow of his throat.

"My dear 007," Silva breathes huskily. "Whoever told you I died?"

"I assumed. What have you done to me?"

"Everything, Mister Bond. I've done everything and more."

James flips Silva onto his back and pins the man's hands above his head. Silva just laughs, dark eyes gleaming, and James can’t hold this position for very long. His muscles are too weak. 

Tiago - _Silva -_ his mind corrects, fists a hand in his too-long hair and pulls him down for a rough kiss, all teeth. James bites the other man’s lip until he tastes blood and Silva reels back, surprised but not uninterested.

"You should have told me you wanted to roleplay tonight,” Tiago purrs, wiping crimson from the corner of his mouth. 

James feels like he’s been slapped.

 

* * *

 

He watches Tiago down three fingers of swill vodka like water at a charity dinner and the suspicious itch is back; instincts that belong to another man screaming at him to investigate further. 

So he does. 

The hotel kitchen is conveniently absent of staff and he throws together an abhorrent concoction of vinegar and olive juice.

It looks like a gin martini, so when he offers the drink to Tiago the man doesn’t bat an eye. James toasts him and downs what is left of his gin and soda. Undeterred, Tiago does the same and sets the glass aside with a smile before pulling James into a loose embrace.

“We’ll be done soon,” he says softly, breath tickling James’ ear, before pulling back to press a kiss to the side of James’ mouth. 

His breath reeks of brine.

No reaction.

Tiago couldn’t taste it.

_Silva couldn’t taste it._

On the drive home, Tiago laces their fingers and hums pleasantly.

“Are you alright?” He asks, eyes trained on the road. “I know you hate those things, but I can only weasel my way out of so many.”

James squeezes Tiago’s fingers in his own.

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Well, in the future, and this is just a thought, you know you can tell me when you’re ready to leave, yes? No need to poison me.”

“What?” James sputters. “Why did you drink it if you knew what it was?”

“The couple I was speaking with? The adored the ‘happy homosexuals’ and offered an obscene amount of money to purchase the film rights for _Casino Royale._ I couldn’t very well recoil from my fiancé and his proffered beverage.”

“I’m sorry-”

“Don’t be. Next time, just talk to me. Alright? We’ve come this far, after all.”

 

* * *

 

Tiago looks at him from across the table and smiles broadly.

“James.” He says lightly, and James looks up from his brisket. 

“Yes?” He tosses back playfully, not quite certain of where this is leading.

“I have a present for you.” Tiago rises from his seat and pulls out a wrapped box from under the table. He comes up behind James to place the package next to his plate, resting his chin on James’ shoulder to watch.

“Well? Open it.”

“What is this for?”

“Consider it an anniversary of sorts.”

James is immediately stricken. Of course he’s forgotten something important

“Did I forget again?”

“No, Darling. Just open it.” The words are hot against James’ ear, and he can’t help but smile.

“Alright, alright.”

He tears the paper from the box and sees familiar blue, but he can’t place the color. He must be lost for a moment, because Tiago nudges him slightly.

“Don’t wander, James. Stay here with me.” He places a steady hand over James’ own and guides him to open the box.

Nestled inside is a cracked ceramic bulldog.

Silva places a gentle kiss to James’ neck and laughs softly, the sound curling through James like a sickness.

“I think I’ve ended up on top, Mister Bond.”

He pulls away and James feels numb.

“So, love, what do you think? Dessert?”

James covers the dog with the wrapping paper and pushes the box away.

“I think I’d like that very much.”

Tiago leans back down again to press a soft kiss against James’ cheek, nipping at the pale stubble.

“Not going to kill me, love?”

James tangles a hand in Silva’s dark hair and pulls to press their foreheads together gently.

“Are you going to give me a reason to?” 

 

* * *

 

“How did you do it?”

“The brisket? I used fresh basil in the béarnaise--”

“Not dinner. Me. How did you do this to me?”

“Oh, my god, yes, sorry. Astonishingly simple. I drugged you, put you in a medically induced coma, had my plastic surgeon clean up your scars, _boop_ , clean slate.” Tiago waves his hand at James’ chest. “Fabulous man, worth every penny. After that all had to do was convince you you’d had gone insane, played the long suffering lover and here we are. All fairly dull, really, compared to what I did to everyone else.” Silva throws his arms wide. “I made the world believe I was a celebrated author by selling your story, James; and I did sell it. Very, very well. I made you fall in love with me.”

James can only look at his hands and his too-slim fingers. He doesn’t look up when Silva begins speaking again, voice wavering slightly.

“I made you fall in love with who I used to be. Truth be told, I wanted to hurt you for depriving me of my one opportunity for revenge, but I realized something. As the weeks dragged on, I knew that if I could strip away what MI6 had done to you, there might be a kindred soul beneath.”

“So you remade me into someone else. Physically and mentally.”

“You make it sound so heinous. It was nice. To have someone that you can take care of, protect from the world. But, truth be told, I missed you James. I missed the wit and the swagger and everything that made you ‘James Bond’.”

“What about you? This whole act, the books, the parties--”

“What did I get out of it? I got to be myself again. The man I was before Mommy tried to put me in the ground. I think, really, I wanted to see if I was so bad as to justify what was done to me. I must not have been, because I swayed you, didn’t I?”

“So you relived your past through me.”

“In a sense. And I brought you with me. I did not remake you, I just wound back the clock.”

“Everything. You and I, the relationship--”

“Oh, darling, no,” Silva pulls a chair out from the table and drops heavily onto the seat before grasping James’ hands firmly in his own. “The circumstances may have been, ah, _unconventional,_ but I think we have something special here.”

“You’re insane.”

“I am not the only one, my love.”

James can’t speak to that, and he doesn’t try. Months of self-conditioning telling him he shouldn’t react like before, with gentle passivity, but now he’s wrong. Wrong about everything.

“You cannot go back to MI6,” Silva presses sadly. “They believe you to be dead and would likely finish the job given what I’ve exposed about you and the organization as a whole. The world at large believes you to be a fictional character, and the public perceives you as my husband-to-be. So there are very few options afforded to you as of yet.”

James pulls a hand from Silva’s grasp and rubs his eyes roughly. 

“I’d forgotten about that.” He forces out. _Oh, god, the engagement._

“As I see it,” Silva starts again, massaging James’ grasped palm with his thumbs. “You can kill me. Simply make it look like a suicide and you are free of me.”

“Perhaps we can continue on like this. No more death, no more secret agent spy games. Or, finally, I think, we go back to before. We both walk away, I return to my little slice of the world and you to the service of your precious country. We sweep this past year under the rug and move on.”

James catches his own reflection in the window, takes note of his too-long hair and of Silva’s non-threatening stance. Of the dining room and the furniture they had chosen together. Of the dinner ‘Tiago’ had spent an entire afternoon putting together in a house they had shared for months. 

An entire life he’d allowed himself to believe in, to accept unconditionally, and before him, the man that had masterminded it all. 

A murderer. 

A terrorist.

His lover.

His fiancé.

The choice is so much easier than it has any right to be.

 

* * *

 

Bond levels the pistol at Silva’s head from across the breakfast table and the other man doesn't acknowledge the threat, merely turns the page of his newspaper.

He cocks back the hammer.

“A cold-blooded, pre-calculated murder? James, what would the neighbors think?”

“Likely what they think now.”

“Well, if that is your only argument, either shoot me or pass the jam.”

He drops the magazine and eases up the hammer, using his free hand to slide the jar of raspberry preserves  across the table. 

“We have to move.” James says abruptly, words slipping out like they may disappear if he doesn’t speak at this very moment.

“Coming down with a case of cabin fever?” Silva chides, slathering sticky red across his toast.

“Q has seen me. Eve Moneypenny as well. It’s only a matter of time before Mallory sends out the dogs. Asset recovery and all.”

Silva actually looks surprised, and James feels a swell of satisfaction at having relayed previously unknown information.

“What do you propose?” 

“Somewhere warm. Somewhere I won’t be tempted to kill you every waking moment of the day, and somewhere we won’t be found.”

“Darling, that place is called Hell.”

“I was thinking Santorini,” James motions to the gun now resting on the tabletop. “But Hell is always an option.”

Silva laughs and throws a leg up to rest a scarred, bare foot on James’ thigh.

“Just say the word, love.”

 

* * *

 

After _Skyfall_ comes out, there’s no going back. 

As the Mediterranean sun glints across the barrel of James’ gun, he sees the light catches his wedding band the same way; and maybe, just maybe, James is alright with the world Tiago has carved out for them.

If life can cling to them like a disease, why not reluctant affection?

Silva blows him a kiss from across the room, his own gun in hand, using a pew as a barricade against the assault and the hail of bullets.

Yes. He can deal with reluctant affection.

 


End file.
